


Vivec Noir

by emblazonet



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Affairs with Ordinators, Domestic Life in the City of Vivec, Dunmer - Freeform, F/M, Gangbang, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Multi, Murder, Murder Mystery, Public Blow Jobs, So Many Ordinators, Where Did All That Plot Come From
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 14:56:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emblazonet/pseuds/emblazonet
Summary: Brutal, inexplicable, and very public murders keep cropping up Vivec—and no one knows why. Sorosi Omalen thought she had her hands full with her tumultuous, kinky relationship with her n'er-do-well boyfriend Avus—and a secret lustful entanglement with a mysterious Ordinator—but her life becomes much more complicated when she stumbles across a body in St. Olms.





	Vivec Noir

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't properly a noir, but I liked it as a title so here we are: sex and murder and Dunmer behaving badly in Vivec.

 

Avus stopped her in the Waistworks of St. Olms canton, before a door to the Canalworks. His mouth lifted in a smug smile as he held out a black scarf. "Put that on your eyes," he ordered.

        Sorosi Omalen carefully reached out to take it. There were no onlookers; at this time of night, the Waistworks were all but deserted. Still, she made sure the cloak covered her body as much as it could. Her heart pounded rapidly as she tied the scarf tightly around her eyes. Avus adjusted it with a rough yank. "Can you see anything?" he asked.

        Sorosi's eyes were closed underneath the light pressure of the blindfold. "No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She heard Avus open the door, and her heart raced. Goosebumps rippled over her entire body, and she hugged the cloak tightly around herself. Avus wrapped an arm around her body and pulled her along.

        "Here are the stairs," he said, closing the door behind them. She felt forward with her foot, and finding the step lowered herself down. She was naked under the cloak save for her kagouti-skin slippers, which she was grateful for, because she did not like to walk the inner canton streets barefoot. The ancient stone of the stairs was cool under the soles, and worn smooth with the passage of countless persons. Avus held her carefully as she went down and down into the blackness of the Canalworks. The sound of the water grew louder and louder as they descended.

        The Canalworks were barely respectable, a warren of corridors and old full tombs. There were shops near here that Sorosi liked to look into. It was a good place for secret business, since it was impossible to eavesdrop over the sound of the water. You had to be careful of servicemer, of course, but where Avus was taking Sorosi there would be no worry from that corner: he always made sure the places he took her were private.

        They walked through a series of sharp turns until Sorosi had completely lost her sense of direction. Then she heard the creak of old hinges, and Avus shoved her forward through what was likely a doorway, since there was a sill, which she tripped over. She went sprawling and stayed on the ground, too winded to cry out, too disoriented to get up. She waited for Avus to touch her and pull her to her feet.

        Avus did grab her, but he made her kneel up only. Then he pulled her arms behind her.

        "You're tying me up?" she asked, hopeful.

        "Yes," he said. He removed her cloak and bound her wrists to her ankles. She tried not to fidget, though he was awhile tightening the knots—though not so tight that she would lose circulation. Avus was good at knots; they never hurt and they never came loose until he wanted them to. She'd accused him of being a mage, once, and that was how she found out his inability with magic was a sore spot for him. He'd yelled for an hour and then broke down and cried. She'd been much taken aback.

        As Sorosi knelt she heard the sound of boots. Heavy boots, and low voices.

        "Avus?" she asked, her voice trembling. She pulled at her wrists involuntarily; the knots held. She was painfully aware of her nakedness now as she had not been earlier. It was easy to be naked around Avus, since they had sex often, but these people sounded like strangers. More than two of them, and male.

        "Friends of mine," Avus said. "You wanted to try this, remember?"

        It wasn't quite panic that knotted itself deep within Sorosi. "You never said we were going to do that tonight!"

        Avus often took her to private places he knew in Vivec, usually in Sorosi's home canton of St. Olms, and they'd certainly discussed the possibility of—of others—but Sorosi hadn't thought that would ever happen.

        "Hush and do as you're told," he said with a playful note in his voice. He cupped her chin and ran his thumb over her lip.

        The mer, whoever they were, wore heavy boots with metal on them. And armour, jingling, chain and plate? Sorosi breathed carefully. Avus let her go, and she felt like she were suspended in murky water, unable to see, able only to feel, and everything was slightly unreal. It was very late at night. She shivered. She heard the door latch, the sounds of the water muffled through stone and wood.

        There was a hand on her hair, and it wasn't Avus's. Her breathing grew heavier. Complete strangers stood around her and unless Avus—or one of them—removed her blindfold, she would never know who they were.

        "She's as pretty as you claimed, Ramarys," said one harsh voice to Avus. Was his voice muffled?

        "I'll enjoy this," murmured another, to sounds of agreement.

        There might have been conversation among them after that, but Sorosi could not have recalled it. She was too distracted by hands caressing her, just her hair and shoulder and face at first. It bothered her that they wore armour. At first she thought they were mercenaries or soldiers, though how Avus would know such people was beyond her. When she felt the brush of a regulatory skirt, and the scrape of metal plates, and the sound of metal objects being placed on the floor, she at last figured out who these strangers were.

        They were Ordinators, taking a break from their rounds. She was their diversion.

        One slipped his finger into her mouth, and taken by a surge of arousal she sucked willingly on it. She felt another Ordinator crouch beside her and reach between her legs. Her hips bucked forward and she moaned around the fingers in her mouth.

        "Her mouth, not her cunt," Avus said sharply.

        "We won't be reciprocating the pleasure, then?" That mer had a deep, rumbling voice that made her shiver. The mer whose finger she sucked on added another finger.

        "She's here to please you, and she'll take her pleasure from that," Avus said.

       Well, Sorosi thought dreamily, he was right so far. She still mewed her disappointment when the mer stopped stroking her wet cunt.

        A soft cock replaced the fingers in her mouth. Under her eager attentions, it did not stay soft long, nor did that first Ordinator have great stamina. It felt like seconds before he came down her throat, and she swallowed reflexively and opened her mouth wide for the next. She pulled at her bonds as she worked the next cock, struggling forward to get to its shorter, thicker length. The Ordinators laughed appreciatively, and stroked or held her head as she sucked them off.

        She'd lost track—was this the third or the fourth Ordinator?—who came in her mouth but withdrew too fast, and spurted again, catching her lips and chin with the warm drops. His fellows groaned and shifted; she thought they might be elbowing him.

        "You bleedin' fetcher, you even got some on your mask," said one of them.

        "Probably sacrilegious," said the one with the deep voice.

        "Make her clean it up," suggested another one, who had a more nasal tone.

        "I'm sure old Nerevar liked a bit of fun once in awhile too," muttered the mer in front of Sorosi. She heard him bend over, and then felt the cool press of metal against her lips and nose.

        A shock went through her. She shivered, goosebumped and cold, and then the next instant her veins ran with magma. She touched the Ordinator's mask with her tongue and licked the cool metal. The Ordinator tilted the mask, and she writhed forward for balance. She lapped up the salty-harsh semen from the mask, and heard the other Ordinators make appreciative sounds.

        "Fuck me, I'm hard again," complained one of them.

        "I'm not fucking you, you've got another four hours of watch to go," said the nasal-toned one.

        "I wouldn't fuck you to save my life," the complainer retorted.

        "Then don't suggest it."

        The mer holding the mask she'd cleaned leaned close and whispered in her ear, "You're so beautiful like this."

        Her mouth was suddenly dry. She heard them step away, she heard them readjust their armour, their conversation flowed like a dream around her, incomprehensible.

        When they left Avus untied her and fucked her blindfolded, his hands on her breasts. "Yeah, take it, you fucking enjoyed that, that was the hottest damn thing, I am so lucky to have— you—"

        He came but she didn't. She almost didn't want to. He led her back to her apartments, up through the Canalworks, and through the long, long hallways of the Waistworks, to the outside where the water between the hulking canton shadows reflected stars, and finally through her own familiar front door. She'd had to be half-carried, and she curled up on her side of their bed, feeling untouchable and floating, exhilarated and composed.

 

* * *

 

Avus put his clay mug down on the broadsheet.

        "I was reading that," said Sorosi from where she stood by the fire, ladling broth into a bowl. The scent of kollop, clam and ebony snapper spiced with Nibenese peppers wove comfortably around her.  

        "You're making breakfast," said Avus. "What's there to know? The Empire is sending more Imperials to Pelagiad. A Dres lord set the Morag Tong on a Hlaalu bureaucrat, but no one's sure why. And there's been another murder."

        "In the Foreign Quarter?" Sorosi brought her bowl to the table and tested its flavour with a wooden spoon that bore teethmarks from her babyhood. There was usually something violent boiling down in the Foreign Quarter. Ordinators only involved themselves if native Dunmer were threatened.

        "No," said Avus. "In St. Delyn's."

        "Again?" whispered Sorosi, shocked. "Did they... was it done the same way?"

        "Lacerations," said Avus, lifting his mug to scan the broadsheet. "Finished with a dagger through the back. Same as the other three."

        "But that was six months ago—"

        "Five, actually."

        "—And I thought they'd hanged the mer that did it. That Sweeps-labourer."

        Avus shrugged. "Either there's more than one killer, or he was framed. Or both. Well, as long as it keeps to St. Delyn, we'll be safe I'm sure."

        "Because they'll contain it, and guard it, and catch the murderer this time," said Sorosi, more to reassure herself than because she believed it. She wasn't stupid enough to think that a few broad bridges could stop a killer from crossing cantons.

        "Are you working at the shop today?" asked Avus.

        "Oh, no," she said. "Well, I might stop in for the afternoon if I get the house tidied up on time. But I'm not scheduled and Corudus doesn't have many orders underway."

        "I don't like how much time you spend with that Imperial," said Avus.

        Familiar irritation bubbled under her skin. "He's only half-Imperial," she snapped. "Anyway, I pay for this place with my coin, while you're still working odd jobs."

        "Don't be rude," said Avus humourlessly.

        "I'm not—"

        He glowered at her and her heart, already disheartened from the news of murder in her city, sank lower. He said, "Yes, you are," and she agreed with him, if only to keep the peace. So that he would not yell. So that he would not make her feel stupid. Would Avus ever learn to calm down? She finished the soup quickly, no longer able to taste it. Then she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, grabbed her shopping-basket, and fled into the brisk First Seed air.

        There was a seasonal spice-market in the St. Delyn plaza, but remembering the murders she found she did not wish to go. She bought little necessary things she needed in her home canton of St. Olms instead, replenishing salts and charms for the icebox. She nodded to neighbours she knew, haggled a bit dully with shopkeepers that asked after her mother's health, avoided the places where her friends would be, and tried to think of nothing much at all.

        Considering the study she was making of her boots, it was a marvel she noticed the Ordinator in the otherwise-empty hallway west of the house-charms shop. She looked at the Ordinator and froze, remembering the night before, and Avus's... and the Ordinators... her hands grew sweaty on her basket-handle.

        The Ordinator beckoned to her with a come-hither curl of his fingers. He wasn't looking at her, was he? Was he a he? They were alone in the hallway, and the Ordinator was turning another corner into an area of the Waistworks she knew was just a collection of small storage rooms.

        He hadn't ordered her. She could turn around and leave.

        She followed the Ordinator.

        In this quiet, secluded storage room they were unlikely to be bothered. The Ordinator shifted his weight and said, "Kneel." His voice rose at the end of the word, cracked to a question, yet its timbre sounded familiar. He must have been one of the Ordinators from the previous night, though it was hard to tell through the metal muffle of the mask.

        There was no sense of threat or demand; the Ordinator had left the door open for her; he was a picture of uncertainty except for his mask. Which he had not removed and probably wouldn't.

        Sorosi knelt.

        She heard his gasp echo metallic, soft and susurrating behind the mask, as she helped him pull aside his mailed skirt and tug down his trousers. The cock was half-hard, but she felt it stiffen further as her lips enveloped its tip. For a moment everything without and within Sorosi felt calm, centered; there was the ancient floor smooth under her knees, and there was the panting of a mer she knew intimately even if she had neither his name nor his face, and there was the work of tongue and lips and a gentle testing application of teeth (which provoked a louder sound, and a buck of his hips). No fear, no complication.

        The moment fell apart a second later, as she pulled back for a deep breath, and felt spit and precome slide down her chin. The door was _ajar_. Anyone could walk in on them— _Avus_ could walk in on them—there was no one to watch their backs.

        She finished him quickly then, taking him deep in throat and working him with all the skill she knew (and tricks she'd invented the night before, when she'd had many more to service). He came with a groan that she thought she recognized. She felt heat deep in her at the sound. Sorosi felt she could do anything just for the rush, for knowing she'd made him sound that way.

        And then it was over, and the Ordinator had resettled his clothing and armour. She wiped her mouth and chin with her handkerchief and watched him leave, her mouth bitter with his flavour.

 

* * *

 

Corudus's bookbinding shop, The Gilty Spine, was crammed with tools and parchments and papers, wood boards and leather, pots of different inks, and sheets of gold and silver leaf. It smelled strongly of glue. Sorosi entered a little shakily. Despite what she had told Avus, she'd just headed straight for Corudus's shop after her encounter with the Ordinator, needing something to distract her.

        "Didn't send for you," said Corudus around his mouthful of ribbons. He was an aging Imperial with an immense mane of white hair that curled around his shiny bald spot and seamed face. Only the upward tilt of his red eyes showed his Dunmer mother's heritage. There were glue- and inkstains all over his apron.

        "Needed something to do," said Sorosi. "Do you have any work for me?"

        Corudus scowled playfully around his mouthful, his hands busy spreading glue over the leather-bound book he held. "Told you before, we're light on orders. I said I'd send for you."

        Sorosi arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms.

        "Fine, fine, if you're going to twist my poor arthritic arms over it," he said. "Sweep the floor, if you want. I suppose you could go over the printing press again and make sure it's good and clean: my boy did a shoddy job this morning again."

        The afternoon passed into evening as Sorosi kept her hands busy. Corudus chattered now and again, once he no longer had ribbons in his mouth, and when Sorosi did not respond as readily as she usually did, he talked more. She appreciated it and told him so when she was leaving.

        He grunted and said, "Blessings of the Nine."

        "Three blessings," she said automatically. They grinned at each other, out of habit, and then she was gone.

        The air was thick with a promise of rain, so Sorosi went quickly out of the Waistworks and out onto the thoroughfare that wound around the outside of the canton. The lamplighters hadn't been by yet, so it got darker as she walked. She hugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

        She was so lost in her thoughts—or in her effort to not think about certain things—that she did not notice how empty the thoroughfare was. Then she almost walked into another Ordinator.

        Her first thought was, _Again?_ , followed by a sharp liquid feeling of desire. Then she smelled blood and worse—she gagged and stumbled backwards. There was a corpse in the middle of the thoroughfare, illuminated by whitish-green light spells.

        "You're not supposed to be here. We're going to ask you some questions," said the Ordinator. Even muffled through the mask, she had a distinctive Necrom accent, long-vowelled and elegant.

        Sorosi looked from her mask to the corpse—a male Dunmer, middle-aged, covered in lacerations, blood pooling beneath him, his throat a gorey ruin—to the mask again. "I... what? I thought these... these are happening in St. Delyn! Oh, by Vivec, he's dead, right here. Dead!"

        "What's your name, girl?"

        Sorosi gaped at the Ordinator, and said something that came out a bare squeak.

        "Come off it, the girl's never seen a murdered corpse before, can't you see that?" The voice, deep and rich, seemed familiar, but it belonged to a stranger, a tall mer with particularly high cheekbones and long black hair tied in a loose tail. He wore casual clothes—not an Ordinator, then. The spell-lights made a small scar on his lip gleam silvery. Sorosi knew she was staring, but it was either at him or at the Ordinator, because she couldn't bring herself to look at the corpse again.

        "She could be acting," said the Ordinator.

        "Why would the murderer come _back_ to a crime scene?"

        As they spoke, more Ordinators—three of them—arrived.

        "I swear I had no idea what was happening!" Sorosi cried. "I work at the Gilty Spine, and I'm just going home. Look, there's ink on my fingers. Ask Corudus, my employer."

        "Very well. You—" the Ordinator pointed at one of the newcomers, "—escort this girl back to the Gilty Spine and verify her story. I want a full report."

        The night blurred. Sorosi was escorted to the shop, where a befuddled Corudus confirmed her alibi. That didn't stop the Ordinator from questioning her relentlessly, despite the bulk of her answers being, "I don't know," and "I've never met him," and "I wasn't there!"

        At the end of it she felt like a dishrag that had been squeezed out and hung to dry. She wobbled her way homewards, escorted still by the Ordinator, and then nearly collapsed when she closed the door of her apartment.

        "Where have you been?" yelled Avus. Avus. Why was he yelling at her?

        "At... at Corudus's," she said, blinking at him. The lanterns made her eyes hurt after the darkness of the outside.

        That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Avus reached out and yanked her towards him, and then spun her around. They were heading for their bed. Sorosi felt her heart, never still since... since..., beat horribly fast. "All night?" he said, low and dangerous, almost a growl. "I tell you how much I don't want you spending time with that n'wah, and you spend all bloody day there?!"

        "Avus, there was a murder—"

        "I know there's a murder, idiot," he said, and threw her onto the bed. He didn't follow, only stood there, fists on his hips, glowering. "Did you even think to send word to me? Here I am, knowing there's a murderer on the loose, and how do I know that Imperial fetcher isn't the murderer?"

        Sorosi had an answer for that one at least. "Because I was in the shop with him while the murder happened?"

        Avus glared so ferociously Sorosi actually scuttled back against the wall. She wrapped her arms around her knees. He said, "So, his boy could have done it. Or another n'wah, it doesn't matter. You were out there, unsafe, without anyone to watch you."

        "The... Ordinators?" Sorosi asked weakly.

        Avus continued scolding her, riding right on top of her fainter and quieter protests. But, she consoled herself, he wasn't hitting her. He'd been afraid for her. She could be understanding, couldn't she? After all, when he wore himself out, he would hold her close, and she could take comfort in the warmth of his body.

        But as he held her, she didn't feel comforted at all.

 

* * *

 

First Seed passed into Rain's Hand. It only rained lightly, and the sun was often out: contrary both to name and to Sorosi's bleak mood. The murder was in the broadsheets, but there was no word of the Ordinators catching the culprit. A few weeks later, they found another body in St. Delyn. So Sorosi all but crept along the thoroughfares and corridors of St. Olms, going out only to make necessary errands or to do her work in Corudus's shop.

        Avus seemed pleased with the arrangement—that he had her at home whenever he wanted, and he could be certain she was home when he left for hours at a time to, presumably, search for odd-jobs. It didn't seem to matter to him that she worried about him, worried she'd find him lying lacerated and broken on the steps of St. Olms.

        And yet, for all she seldom left her house, she had two more encounters with the Ordinator she had begun to think of as 'hers'—the one from the storeroom. She knew him now by his height, by the set of his shoulders, by the precise way his wrist tilted and fingers beckoned when he took her aside. Each encounter ended with her on her knees and his seed in her mouth, but the second time he took off his gauntlets to fondle her a little, and if it hadn't been for several servicemer with brooms and mops coming perilously close, he might've wrung an orgasm from her shaking desperate body.

        They never spoke, and Sorosi thought of him often, especially when Avus was in a mood. Avus had never touched her so carefully, or so firmly, or so deftly.

        Then it was Second Seed, and hot, the air hazy off the water. Sorosi worked in Corudus's shop in the morning, and it was high noon when she left. She stopped at a food stand for fried shrimp kebabs. She ducked into the covered Stairs of Benediction that led from the St. Olms Plaza to the Waistworks on the north-east side of the canton. It was so dark in contrast to the sun that she couldn't see a darn thing.

        She felt motion and froze. She listened, filtering out the sounds of the busy plaza above, and heard breathing, and a gurgle, and suddenly the breeze of someone moving very quickly, and then a meaty thud that sounded very close.

        She leapt forward down the stairs, to see if anyone needed help. Her eyes hadn't adjusted yet to the gloom, so she misjudged the greying shadows and her foot skidded in something wet. She tripped over something fleshy and hot and sticky, and her instincts knew it for a corpse before her mind did. She was screaming as she stumbled and fell down the stairs. She fetched up halfway down, and there was blood running down the stairs in small trickles and large smears.

        She could see the body and its ripped clothes, the wounds striping him, the blood, the blood. She screamed and she screamed, and there were people, and Ordinators, and people were shouting at her. There was blood on her dress, and it was so _loud._

        A gauntlet on her shoulder, heavy and cold even through the fabric of her dress, startled her to silence. She looked up into an Ordinator's mask, the eyes behind too dark to distinguish but for the glimmer of his glance. "Come with me," he said, and she thought she recognized his voice. Surely it wasn't _her_ Ordinator. She followed him, his hand on her shoulder, her hand on the steadying cold of it.

        At the St. Olms Watch Office, he ushered her into a small room. There was a desk and chairs, and an icon of Vivec, and was otherwise bare. He spoke to someone out in the main part of the office, and some time later he pressed a hot earthenware mug into her hands. She inhaled indifferently, and felt somewhat grounded by the deep earthy scent of Deshaani tea.

        She remembered the corpse, and her stomach—full of fried shrimp—curled in on itself. "He died when I was _there_ ," she whispered, rough-voiced.

        "Drink your tea," commanded the Ordinator. He took off his mask. She froze, the rim of the mug on her lips. She recognized him: the mer from the last murder, with his dark hair in a queue and the small silvery scar on his lip. She hadn't thought he was an Ordinator, but she supposed he'd been off-duty. That was why he seemed familiar.

        "I am Ravos Telmayn," he said. "And your name is...?"

        She sipped her tea as he settled into the other chair. "Sorosi Omalen. I didn't kill him."

        "I know," said Ravos. "I'm just going to ask you some questions." He brought out a pad of paper from a drawer in the desk, and a quill and ink, and then pulled out a tiny pair of spectacles that he perched on his nose.

        "Okay," she said.

        He hummed as his pen scratched over the paper. Kresh paper, she thought. Of a lesser grade than the kind Corudus would print on. Ravos looked back up at her and smiled. Her heart beat faster. She really was acquiring quite the Ordinator fetish, Sorosi thought angrily to herself. "What were you doing right before you found the corpse?"

        Sorosi told him the little she knew, about Corudus, about the shrimp, about the feeling of someone running away and her fall down the stairs. She interjected her disapproval about the way the Ordinators were handling the murders, which Ravos ignored until, it seemed, he'd had enough.

        "Look, Sera Omalen, we're doing the best job we can do with the information we have," he snapped, scowling at her over his spectacles. "I'm not obligated to explain how we're doing this. The best thing you can do is to tell me anything you know."

        "And I don't know anything useful!" said Sorosi. "Shouldn't you be questioning someone more suspicious?"

        "You've been at the site of two murders," said Ravos. "Almost as soon it happened, for the first, and right as it happened, for the second. That alone makes you suspicious. You should be happy _I_ took you in for questioning, since I believe that you're innocent!"

        Sorosi felt a shiver of hysteria in her limbs, a sudden urge to laugh, a prickle of her nose and eyes. "I didn't see anyone. I didn't see anything. What if the murderer thinks I have? What if I'm next?"

        Ravos brought his head up, like Sorosi's mother used to do when she'd been miffed. Sorosi didn't think Ravos was miffed, but she couldn't read his expression. He said, "All the victims have been male, both in St. Delyn and here. I think you are safe."

        "But you can't guarantee it!" Her ears rang, and she realized she'd shouted.

        Ravos rubbed his temples and took off his spectacles. "Allow me to escort you home," he said.

        "I would like that very much." She put down her half-full mug and got to her feet.

 

* * *

 

Sorosi woke to the smell of kwama egg and onion sauté. The aroma was full of pepper and a spice blend Sorosi recognized. She bolted upright. "Undena!"

        "Good morning, Sorosi," said Undena from her place by the hearth. She quirked an eyebrow. "Your door was open, so I came in. Since you can't be bothered to visit a friend, I decided I'd force a visit on you."

        "Avus would flay you for just walking in—"

        "Oh please," said Undena. "Avus is out on the docks, being a layabout, and he couldn't lay a hand on me if he wanted to. I'd shock the blood from his body if he dared to twitch."

        "I don't think shock works that way," Sorosi mumbled. She could smell her own breath, and that discomfort drove her to the washbasin and her toothbrush. "And I'dsh puhfer yuh didn'."

        "What was that? You want me to strike him with lightning until he begs forgiveness for keeping you cooped up in here?"

        Sorosi glared at Undena, who smiled beatifically back and combed through her curtain of red hair with the hand that wasn't holding the wooden spoon.

        When Sorosi had cleaned up, she came to sit at the table. Undena gave a bigger portion of herbed egg to Sorosi, and they ate it on the flatbreads Sorosi had prepared last night after the Ordinator had brought her home. (For Avus, but Sorosi was secretly happy to feed Undena instead.)

        "He's not 'keeping me cooped up', anyway," she said. "I'm being cautious."

        "You used to come around most days," said Undena, "And I haven't seen you since First Seed. What's changed? Oh yes, Avus moved in. Avus doesn't like me, or Valuri, or Mevure."

        "We've been busy."

        "Mevure says he doesn't have a job yet, so I don't know why you're defending him," said Undena.

        "Anyway, it's dangerous out there. Because of the murders." Sorosi choked a bit on her next bite of flatbread, and Undena looked alarmed and reached over to touch Sorosi's hand.

        "You knew one of the victims?"

        Sorosi squeezed her eyes shut. "Not exactly. I tripped over one yesterday though."

        "You—tripped—"

        Sorosi gave Undena a condensed version of what she'd seen, trying not to dwell on it... the blood. The _smell_. Inadvertently, she thought of Ravos, of the scar on his lip that shimmered, almost, when he spoke. She laughed a little, in nervousness, and Undena abruptly stood and came around the table to hug her.

        "Oh, dear, I had no idea. I really just wanted to check up on you, because I don't like how long it's been that we haven't—I'm so sorry you had to encounter that. I didn't know. I'm sure they'll catch the murderer soon."

        "Not at this rate they won't," sniffed Sorosi, burying her head in Undena's scarf, the embroideries harsh on her cheek. Undena smelled like spice and childhood, and Sorosi realized she'd missed her friendships. Avus had so many reasons why Sorosi ought not to see them, and they sounded rational at the time—but Sorosi was so frustrated: with Avus, with death, with loneliness.

        She sat back and dashed a hand over her eyes. "Undena, why aren't the Ordinators catching the killer?"

        "I thought they had, over in St. Delyn. But... maybe the St. Olms killer is a new one, inspired by the first." Undena shifted her weight to her left hip and propped her hand on it. Sorosi narrowed her eyes at her friend thoughtfully.

        "So, what do we know about the St. Delyn murders? There were three... and then the recent fourth. They were all killed with lacerations."

        "And finished with a stab in the back," Undena said. "Which confused me, I mean, why bleed them out first and then just finish the job like that?"

        Sorosi closed her eyes and the bodies were emblazoned on her eyelids. Her stomach writhed. "The two bodies I saw—the only two bodies in St. Olms, why in Vivec's name did I have to see them both?!—weren't stabbed in the back. They were slashed on the throat."

        "So?"

        "We've got two options here," Sorosi said. "Either the Sweeps-labourer they hung in St. Delyn was the murderer, and the St. Olms murderer is a new one, inspired by his or her predecessor. Or the Sweeps-labourer was framed and scapegoated."

        "Should Vivec not watch overy His holy city?" asked Undena, touching forehead, throat and heart: mystery, mastery, mercy.

        Sorosi wrinkled her nose. "When was the last time anyone saw Vivec? His Ordinators should be protecting us. If they're not, and we could help... we should help. Undena, I need to go to the temple and burn offerings for the dead."

        "I'll go with you," said Undena.

        At high noon, the Temple of St. Olms was deserted, though redolent with the morning's incense. Sorosi and Undena, fresh-scrubbed from a brief visit to the next-door bathhouse, burnt more incense to feed the resinous air. Sorosi knelt in the warm red light by the ashpit, her eyes fixed on the murals on the far wall: Veloth, leading the Chimer; and St. Olms, helm under arm, raising up a smaller figure in Ordinator's armour. St. Olms had founded the Ordinators. Sorosi prayed that the justice that inspired St. Olms would inspire those who followed in his footsteps.

        Undena shifted on her knees. Sorosi wondered what her friend prayed for. Maybe, she thought with a prickle of guilt, to have Sorosi back. They'd been friends since childhood, and had seldom been apart for so long. And then, further guilt: obviously Undena would not be so selfish. Her prayers would be for the dead.

        They lunched at a small eating-house in the Waistworks. It had a little canopied patio area that overlooked the canal, busy at noon with a swarm of gondoliers and the odd enterprising mage running lightly over the waters. There were rules about who could waterwalk during the day in the canals—but the rules were seldom enforced, save by the gondoliers themselves, who wanted monopoly over the waters. Sorosi loved the drama of it all, and especially that she was distant and removed from the water: the gondoliers waving their fists, the waterwalkers dodging.

        "Hello, Sorosi?"

        Sorosi sheepishly pulled her gaze away from the water. "I was watching."

        "I asked you a question." Undena pulled a long, long red hair out of her food, and wrinkled her nose at it. It wrinkled the arrowed tattoo that angled from her nose to her temple, too.

        Sorosi felt her cheeks warm. "I didn't hear it."

        "I wanted to know if you thought the Camonna Tong were behind the murders."

        "The..." Sorosi propped her chin on her hands. "They don't have a presence on St. Olm's... or on St. Delyn's, for that matter." And there wasn't the political aspect, if the murders had been happening on the cantons belonging to the Great Houses or even the Arena. "Anything's possible, I suppose."

        "Don't just agree with me," said Undena. "What do you actually think?"

        Sorosi scowled at her friend. "I think I'm letting my noodles go cold," she said.

 

* * *

 

Sorosi walked Undena to work at the Tailors and Dyers Hall, and hugged her tight as a goodbye. It was overwhelming to hug someone comfortable and kind, without the anxiety that Avus provoked or the sexual charge of the Ordinator's metal embrace.

        Undena came back the next day, and she and Sorosi planned to see each other most days for the following week. Sorosi planned her visits when Avus was usually out; and if he noticed Sorosi seemed happier, he didn't comment on it.

        She had no pressing commitments by Loredas. The late afternoon found her in the Waistworks, new-bought needles sharp in her pocket.

        Lost in thought, she all but collided with Ravos as she turned the corner. He put out a hand to stabilize her, but she had already stepped back. "Sera," she said. He was dressed in civilian clothing, though there was a glimmer of gold in the embroideries on his long blue scarf.

        "It's fortunate we've run into each other," he said.

        "It is?"

        "I wanted to ask how you were doing. I know this must have been very stressful for you." His face was a perfect mask of politeness—at least, Sorosi couldn't see any ulterior motive for their conversation. Maybe it wasn't a mask.

        Sorosi opened her mouth to demur and then leave, but instead she told him that she'd lit incense in the temple, and the small measure of peace that had brought her, and then she spoke a little about Undena. She and Ravos kept pace with each other as they ducked out into a slice of sunshine on the outer promenade. Ravos listened as they passed into shadow beneath a market stall awning, and then into sun again, and then shadow, down towards the north. Beyond the awnings and pennants and statues, the High Fane—and the Ministry of Truth above—glowed in late-afternoon orange.

        "And then she asked me about the Camonna Tong," Sorosi said. "She keeps going on about it." Then she looked up at Ravos in sudden alarm. "As far as I know, they've no presence here at all!"

        The corner of Ravos's mouth twitched upwards. "There isn't any Tong presence in St. Olms or St. Delyn. Since you've lived here your whole life, I don't suspect your involvement with the Tong in the slightest."

        "How do you know that?" Sorosi demanded, turning her whole body to stare at him. The light made his reddish sclera glow. "I never said I'd lived here all my life!"

        Ravos's lopsided grin widened to a true smile. "Your branch of the Omalens have lived in Vivec a long time, and anyway, I asked around. You're pretty low on our suspect list, but it would be foolish and irresponsible of us not to make inquiries."

        Sorosi shrugged and readjusted her shawl, letting it pass. At least the Ordinators were doing _something._ "Still, this has the feeling of an organization."

        Ravos arched an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

        "So many murders, and all done the same way? The lacerations? I saw two bodies, and the lacerations seemed in much the same places. But it's strange, isn't it, that in St. Delyn they were finished by a stab in the back, and here it was a slash on the throat. But it's unnecessary to do the lacerations at all, because they looked...  I'm no expert, but if it were a struggle, wouldn't the cuts have been more around one area? Not ... _everywhere,_ deliberately _._ So it's a message to _someone_. Maybe it's just for fear reasons, but I work in a bookshop—I've read that the Camonna Tong do that thing on the wrists, when they murder an outlander who's crossed them."

        When Ravos replied, his tone was deep with surprise. "You've thought a lot about this." Then he nudged her shoulder, guiding her up a small flight of stairs. There was a little garden on the roof of an apartment block, surrounded by an assortment of flowers and mushrooms. It was a good place to sit and watch the sun set behind the Ministry of Truth—Sorosi had played here as a child. She settled beside the lone emperor parasol, half-leaning on it, heedless that half her rump was in the dirt it grew in. Ravos settled beside her, cross-legged. The sun had turned the Inner Sea into gold. Distant Ebonheart was a smudged silhouette on the horizon.

        "I've barely thought of anything else," she said. "I keep discussing it with Undena, but we haven't come to any conclusions. If it's not the Camonna Tong, but it's organized, who's behind it? Not the _Morag Tong_ , they've got writs and they don't hit regular working mer."

        "It's not the Morag Tong," said Ravos. "I've cleared that."

        "Oh," said Sorosi. She looked down at her hands in her lap, then down at the drifting gondolas. There were lit lamps at the prows, now. Ravos was an Ordinator, of course he would have contacts among assassins. And all kinds of other people, interesting, grand, talented people. She felt sheltered and small, a bookbinder's apprentice living in the canton she'd been born in. She knew country mer came in from all over the Ascadian Isles and even further, seeking to be cosmopolitan, cultured, wealthy in Vivec; but the cantons were so much like villages in some ways. The main difference was that it was easy to walk over a bridge.

        "I shouldn't... perhaps... be keeping you from your investigation?" Sorosi hadn't meant to sound timid, but it happened anyway. She bit the inside of her lip, annoyed with herself.   

        "I have Loredas off," said Ravos, sounding amused. "Loredas and Morndas, if you want to know. I do paperwork, Sundas."

        "Well, I shouldn't—"

        Ravos half turned to face her, putting out an arm to balance himself. That brought him closer to her. She didn't move. "I don't mind discussing this with you," he said. "Like I mentioned, I wanted to know how you were doing. And... you'll forgive me, but I thought it might be nice to sit awhile here with you."

        Avus would kill me, thought Sorosi. "Nothing to forgive," she said. "It's a lovely evening."

        "Yes," he said, but he was looking at her.

        "And you—have you lived in Vivec all your life?" she asked, casting about wildly for a topic. She was overthinking. She wasn't thinking.

        "My family comes from Deshaan—I was born in Old Ebonheart, during their exile of sorts, but I don't remember anything but that, and then the house we had in the Ascadian Isles is only brief flashes of memory. My mother was an Ordinator—it was her attachment to the Tribunal that got her in trouble with the Deshaani Dres-lords." He looked out over the water as he spoke, and something about the set of his shoulders loosened, and his voice was soft.

        "In trouble?"

        "She would disagree with policies... and slavery, she didn't much like that either. She wasn't an abolitionist, but she couldn't stand to be a plantation guard."

        "And you're not an abolitionist?"

        Ravos stared at her, eyebrows lifted. "I am an instrument of the law," he said carefully. "That's not a question you should feel safe asking me."

        It should have sounded like a threat, but Sorosi laughed. She found she wasn't afraid of him in the slightest. "Very well, then. What are your feelings?"

        "That I disagree with the institution of slavery; that its legality is a painful economic necessity at the moment; that my hands are tied; that there is a change coming that the Hlaalu and Imperials spearhead—those of the Hlaalu who don't care to profit on it, that is, and there's always corruption—and when I can, I will speak in favour of change. I do already."

        "Corruption," said Sorosi quietly. "The Hlaalu are rotten with it, and do you suppose there's—"

        "From what I know of the Hlaalu, there is no involvement in the murders," said Ravos, firm and distant.

        Sorosi looked towards the High Fane again. The sun had finally set, except for the faintest band over the water. Above were stars now, and as if to mirror the sky, the canton gardens around them and across the water were dotted with the green and blue mushroom glow.

        "I should go home," she said after a while.

        "I'll walk with you," Ravos offered.

        "Please," she said, actively admiring the violet coprinus that bowed with the swish of her skirt as she stood. She was, she reminded herself, grateful because it was frightening to walk alone at night. Because of the murders. (One of which had been committed in full daylight.) The murders.

        She did not take his arm as they descended the staircase, but the impulse worried her.

        They talked of inconsequentials all the way back to her apartment, about bards that wrote politically-tinged ballads, the scandalous plays of the Hlaalu, the various performances and duels they had witnessed at the Arena. Sorosi asked him about books, and his taste in novels aligned with hers. She was sad when he left her at her doorway. But then, it would not do to let Avus know the company she kept. She let herself in.

         

* * *

 

Avus finally took notice of her lunch-dates with Undena, so arguments came more frequently. Avus's fury frustrated and frightened her, so Sorosi stayed longer hours with Corudus—talking or reading, if he had no work for her. And Avus took issue with that. And so the week stretched taut like a cord about to break, and Sorosi knew she needed to do something about it, but could not find it in her heart to confront either Avus or her own feelings.

        It was after a late night at Corudus' bookshop on Turdas that Sorosi saw the Ordinator again. Her Ordinator, in a dimly-lit hall in the Waistworks, by that very same storage room where she'd first been invited down on her knees before him. So familiar: the movement of his wrist, the pace of his walking—and there was a suspicion in her mind.

        _No_.

        It couldn't be that she recognized him from the way he walked. She squinted at him as she trailed him into the storeroom. The height—and the set of the shoulders—

        He reached out for her, spun her around, pressed her fast between the hard wall and the cold of his cuirass.

        She felt her lips part; she leaned in, to the ear warm on the side of the mask. He had several gold rings in the lobe, and her mouth brushed them as she spoke, her voice tangled with the breathiness of both arousal and confusion: " _Ravos_?"

        His hands stilled, one firm on her hip and the other cupping her breast. The moment lingered, and from his lack of protest, from his lack of movement, Sorosi knew she'd guessed right.

        He stepped back; she flung her arms around him and pulled him; she needed no strength, because he came readily to her. She lifted up his mask, but got only as far as the mouth—and its little scar, proving the truth—when he caught her hands. He wasn't wearing gauntlets.

        "I'm going to close the door," he said. "And bar it."

        "Yes," she said, acquiescence and plea together.

        He did so, and took off his mask, and there was Ravos standing there, looking utterly bewildered. How had she not recognized her private Ordinator in Ravos? Or had it only been that the night they had met without a mask in the way—(the murder, and the shock)—she had at first assumed he was not an Ordinator.         

        "I owe you an apology," he said, "and then I'll leave."

        "Don't leave," said Sorosi. Her back was still pressed against the wall, and all of her burned for him. But he wasn't moving, so she went to him and took his hands when he wouldn't embrace her.

        "I... after the... night with the others... I thought... I took liberties."

        Of course he'd been one of the Ordinators from the night Avus had taken her down to the Canalworks blindfolded.

        "And you gave me every opportunity to leave," said Sorosi. "Take note, I never left."

        "I have not behaved in line with my ideals," he said. He was flustered, and his hands flinched in hers. She wasn't sure what ideals he meant, but she wasn't very interested in them at the moment. She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him full on the mouth. There was a moment of stillness, stillness again, and his mouth opened beneath hers, and the kiss deepened. He held her close, and backed her up, and up, and up against the wall again. She could feel the texture of the scar on her lips and it enflamed her further.

        His breath sounded harsh in her ear. "I want to fuck you right here in the storeroom," he said.

        "So do it," she replied, metal warming beneath her palms. She fumbled for the straps of his armour, but unfamiliarity made her clumsy. He caught her hands.

        "It won't be comfortable," he warned.

        Sorosi laughed, lightheaded. He kissed her again, and somehow got his clothing and armour free of his erection. She hiked her skirts up and he lifted her. It wasn't comfortable at all, with her back to the cold stone wall and Ravos's armour unyielding. She didn't care much however, because he pressed into her, and then she was moaning.

        Half at her behest, it went hard and fast. She rested her hands on his pauldrons since she could not safely embrace him, and her fingers curled around the metal and held tight. She lost track of time: he felt wonderful inside her but each thrust forced her into the wall, and the gradual pain and discomfort only drove her further into lust. When he was done he let her down, but her legs shook and he kept an arm around her to hold her while his fingers did indescribable things between her legs and she came with a string of curses.      

   

* * *

 

Sorosi thought it would be harder to keep a secret. Avus asked her no leading questions when she came home late, because he was not there.

        A stack of three crates were there instead, with a note atop them: 'I am keeping thees for werk. Do not open.' Underneath was a scrawled _AR_ , for Avus Ramarys.

        Sorosi, exhausted, did not even spare a thought for curiosity. She was too tired to be irritated with his poor spelling. She fell into bed, and dreamed.

 

* * *

 

_Candles led her down a long hall. They were red, but the flames were red also, and cast a glow that was like, but not like, the glow that might come from a red paper lantern in the Velothi style. Her heart beat faster._

_Magma coursed down the passageway now, in rock channels beside her, at waist-height as if crafted that way; but the stone was natural, irregular, jagged. She could have reached out and touched it. She burned like a fever. She could not stop walking forward._

_Someone, somewhere, deep in the heart of this cave, struck a gong. It shook her head. It shook her mind free of her body._

_"We call you to your lord. Will you submit to him?"_

_Was it a voice that spoke, or was it the voice of the gong, reverberating down the passages? The magma glowed brighter._

_"Your lord and master rises and gathers strength to him. We can feel your yearning for completion. Join us."_

_Magma spilled down the rock, reaching for her body. As if she were a spirit watching from a distance, she saw her feet catch fire, her legs, higher, turning her body to a pillar of flame._

 

* * *

 

Sorosi woke, screaming, drenched in sweat. Her chest shuddered as she heaved in breaths like a fishermer heaving in full nets. Avus did not lie beside her, but the crates lurked in the gloom. The seemed to pulse, limned in faintest red.

        Sorosi launched herself out of bed. The air was too hot. She lit the lamps until it was almost bright. Her fingers scrabbled over the crates, looking to open a lid. When she'd opened a crate, she stared down at rows of reddish clay statues. They seemed to pulse with an uncomfortable energy, as if each were surrounded with some strange padded air. They stank heavily of resin and smoke.

        "Vivec, guard your supplicant," she whispered. She didn't know what the statues were, but she hated them with every bone in her body. Her home—the apartment she'd grown in, the house her parents had left to her when they had moved in with her grandparents in the Ascadian Isles, this safe haven in the holiest city in Morrowind—throbbed with malice.

She slammed the lid back on. The malice faded.

        She knew there wasn't any use going back to sleep. If the things were magic, they'd surely caused her unusually vivid nightmare. If they weren't, she still wanted to keep an eye on them. She lit the cooking fire and began to mix the dough for flatbreads. At least she could keep busy.

        By dawn—perhaps two hours since her nightmare—Avus came in.

        "The crates have to go," she said.

        "What?"

        "The crates," she said. "I don't want them in here. It's hard to navigate around them and they feel funny to me. Why are they even here?"

        Avus came and embraced her. He kissed her neck where she liked it, and nibbled along her ear. Her fear faded away, and the simmering start of arousal set in. Damn—how could it be that she was so vexed with him, but still desire him so strongly?

        "I thought you'd be happy to know I have work," he said into her ear, his breath light, his tone almost—playful? "Don't worry, my love, I'll be moving them this afternoon. I just want to nap, first—although, before I do—" His hands slid over her shoulders, down to cup her breasts. She let him guide her into bed, and shortly he had all of her attention. The memory of the dream faded under his skilled hands and mouth.

        The only unwanted thought she had during the activity was a quiet but persistent nagging: _Ravos is better._

 

* * *

 

For once, Avus was correct about his work. He and a tall mer with a very gravelly voice that seemed a bit familiar moved the crates out to a wagon. Instantly, the little apartment felt airy and cheerful. Sorosi dusted all her icons of the Tribunal and the Saints and lit candles by them all, and felt much better by the time she'd washed and changed for work at the Gilty Spine.

        As she glued leather to boards, she tried to figure out what she wanted to do about the Ravos situation. Her mind whirled. She couldn't tell Avus. She didn't know what Ravos wanted from her—if it were simply sexual encounters on the side, well, he was attractive and wonderful, and she needn't tell Avus. She could keep a secret.

        She kept it from Avus, and she meant to keep it from Undena.

        She and Undena lunched together the following day, Loredas. Life's normalcy had eased the shock of the murders, and since there were no new deaths they talked instead of mutual friends, of how business was doing, of the latest news from across Vvardenfell and the mainland. They sat outside a circle of street vendors, beneath a guarskin canopy, overlooking the water as Sorosi preferred.

        Sorosi decided her luck was cursed when Ravos appeared out of the crowd  and waved to her.

        "Greetings, sera," she mumbled. Undena narrowed her eyes, and Sorosi hastily introduced him, "Uh, Undena, meet Ravos, he's an Ordinator."

        "Off-duty," said Ravos, cheerfully. He had a bowl of  spiced noodles and he twirled them around his fork without eating.

        "Pleasure to meet you," said Undena, her voice light and breathy. "Why don't you join us?"

        Sorosi could have kicked her. Instead she put a smile on her face and then a spoonful of stew in her mouth.

        "Sorosi was just telling me about this ridiculous nightmare she had," Undena said.

        Sorosi swallowed. "Hey, that's personal!"

        "Well, it was caused by a curse, right? That's the _least_ personal kind of nightmare."

        Ravos's brow furrowed. "You've been cursed? Curses are pretty personal. And rather illegal. You can report that, but preferably to the desk, not to me. Not my specialty."

        "It's not a curse! Not a targeted one, anyway." Sorosi explained about the crates, and the nightmare, and the statues. She'd expected mild reactions, the sort of 'oh, that's interesting' people often displayed when dreams were told in the daytime.

        Instead, Ravos started and leaned forward, elbows on the table, noodles forgotten. "Statues? Were they a sort of dull reddish clay? About the length of my forearm?"

        "Sort of humanoid, really," said Sorosi. "A bit like Daedric designs, I think." Corudus had several books on Daedric architecture. "With these red glass eyes. I swear they looked like they were glowing under the candlelight. Ugh." She shuddered deeply.

        "And they're still in your house?" Ravos asked sharply.

        "No! Avus took them away."

        Ravos nodded. "That's right," he said. "You live with Avus Ramarys. What's his line of work, anyway?"

        Sorosi sighed. Undena snorted and cut in, "Avus doesn't work. He just mopes on the docks day in and day out pretending to look for work."

        "He gets work," Sorosi said, and, loudly, over Undena's raucous laugh, "from time to time. He's been paying his share of rent for the past three months! He can change." So there.

        Ravos leaned back in the chair. She tried not to look too closely at his face. Was there something like disappointment there? Or did she just want there to be?

        The conversation shifted to lighter things. Sorosi endured the round of small talk before Ravos took his leave—and ignored the lingering farewell look he gave her.

        "I think he likes you," said Undena.

        Sorosi scowled at the remnants of her stew.

        "Better looking than Avus," Undena continued. "Has a steady job—"

        "Undena," said Sorosi, so firmly than Undena's mouth shut with a comical click. "Stop. You're not helping."

        Undena propped her head on her hand, unrepentant. "So, did you hear about what Mevure said to that charming gondolier who kept bringing her fresh timsa-come-by flowers?"

 

* * *

 

Avus was furious the following evening. Not with Sorosi, though it leaked out in sharp snappish words, in commands instead of requests, in long silences that made Sorosi hunch her shoulders and busy herself with sewing in the corner. Avus gripped his tea mug with pale knuckles, one corner of his lip curled.

        Sorosi looked up from her sewing from time to time, avoiding his face but admiring how fine he looked in his elegant robes. He'd dressed up for some purpose, in scarlet layered with muted violet and gold, gold on his ears and fingers. There was kohl lining his eyes and he'd been washing his hair with egg-whites so it shone.

        When he seemed to have calmed down, he extended a hand to her and helped her from her chair. She set aside her sewing and went happily into his arms. She liked that he'd reined his temper this time, and that he had mostly ignored her until he was ready to act with kindness. Maybe he _was_ changing. His hands smoothed over her back, down past the sash at her waist, over the curve of a buttock. "Sorosi," he said into her hair.

        "Mmm?" She matched him caress for caress, and felt him thrust against her: but if he was hard, there was too much fabric between them for her to tell.

        "I've got a good thing going, Sorosi," he said. "I'm going to make us a lot of money."

        "That's wonderful," said Sorosi, and kissed him. He pushed her back, putting a finger to her lips.

        "I'm going out," he said. "I'm making deals, making connections." He cupped her chin, and kissed her, hard and demanding; the sort of kiss that made her utterly weak in the knees, ready to give him whatever he asked of her.

        When he pulled back, she said, "What kind of deals?"

        He tapped his finger against her lips again. "Uh uh, I'll tell you when they're made," he said. "I don't want to jinx it if tonight doesn't go well."

        "That's alright then," she said, breathless and aroused.

        "I promise when the deal's made, if it's made, I'll take you to a little private party, like the one back in First Seed, and you'll be the centre of attention. I know you liked that." He squeezed her breasts, nibbled her throat. She felt absolutely miserable when he left, because she wanted him that badly.

        The arousal ebbed moments later when her mind finally caught up to the rest of her. He'd been angry and worried. Something wasn't right. If this job prospect was as good as all that, he should've been happy. Elated. What was he involved with? She wondered if she should stop by the St. Olms Watch Office and talk to Ravos—no. She hadn't made up her mind about Ravos. There was nothing to say, and certainly not about Avus.

        But there were the nightmare-statues. Ravos had been extremely interested in them.

        They'd split the drawers on the writing desk. The left was full of his papers, and the one on the right was for hers. She never opened the left drawer. Her hands shook as she pulled a wad of papers out, leaving the detritus of quills and charcoal sticks in the drawer.

        Correspondences with friends she read and set aside. Shopping lists she scanned and likewise set aside. Scrawls of tasks to do, in various stages of crossing out—it all seemed very mundane. There was no clue as to what the statues were, or where Avus had got them. Frustrated, she shoved the paper back in the drawer, in the same higgledy-piggledy mess she'd found them in.

        Her restlessness drove her to ransack his pockets, too. Just to see.

        In one pocket she found a crumpled up note. _St. Olms docks, 7pm, unload._ No date. It wasn't written in Avus's hand, and it told her nothing she did not already know. Frustrated, she gave up.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Avus was thrilled to tell her the deal had been made. There was a meeting on Turdas, only a few days away. "You'll be the entertainment," Avus told her as he fucked her cheerfully, "like before. All that attention for you. You'll do that for me, won't you?"

        "Yes," she said, because she'd say yes to anything with Avus in control like this, and her hands bound, and her mind and body ecstatic. If there were worries in the back of her head, she'd ignore them. Avus had brought home not only a good mood and a sexual appetite to match hers, but also a purse full of money.

        She had a shift at Corudus's that evening. The good mood from her diverting afternoon faded, to be replaced with a nagging feeling that there were important things Avus was _not_ saying. There were questions she was hesitant to ask.

        At the end of her shift, she emerged from the shop to see Ravos lounging on the wall, holding a basket. "I bought you dinner," he said. "I need to speak with you."

        She froze under the sweep of torchlight. "Yes," she said, because she knew they both needed answers, and she could not continue pretending that things had not changed. "Thank you."

        Ravos had brought her saltrice rolls wrapped in hackle-lo leaves, stuffed with shrimp and crab. They ate in a small secluded area on the upper plaza, on benches beneath a tilted emperor parasol. There was a blue glass lantern on the table, but it wasn't much brighter than the luminous russulas around them.

        "I think we've established that you can keep secrets," said Ravos. He was having trouble looking at her, Sorosi thought. "And my order is shaken as it is. I think, under normal circumstances, I should not tell you anything."

        "But you're going to tell me," said Sorosi, leaning forward.

        "Yes," said Ravos. "Sorosi..."

        Say my name again, Sorosi wanted to say. For a dizzying instant she wanted to kiss him and beg him to make her forget about everything: the murders, Avus, all the nightmares that had followed her. He'd succumb to her as he had in the storeroom; he would lay her down among the glowing fungi and fuck her senseless.

        And she would be in the same position at the end, when the arousal wore off: confused and worried and aware that Avus was in over his head but not knowing _what_ , exactly, was happening.

        Ravos's eyes widened for an instant, and she thought he noticed her hunger. But then he looked away, and she was grateful for his control.

        "I don't know who is responsible for the murders, but I suspect they are members of the Watch," he said.

        Sorosi thought she had felt unsettled and unsafe before. Now she felt as though her stomach sank through the canton to plunge into the water below. "The... Watch? Do you have proof?" she said in a whisper.

        "Only their lack of interest in the murder case, and the fact that we're all fallible, greedy sinners," said Ravos with a bitterness that surprised her.

        "You're not a murderer," she said, certain of that.

        "No, but my conduct is immoral," he said.

        "You mean with me."

        "Yes, with you," he replied, and the bitterness in his voice sharpened to a brittle point. "And it's because of you I think I know that my own Watch-mates—mer I've known for years, who I have entrusted with my life on several occasions—are involved with... with sacrilege. And Vivec, who surely must see corruption spread in the heart of His city, has made no move. I don't know what I'm supposed to think."

        "One of the others from that night... with the blindfold..." Sorosi said.

        Ravos's breath hitched. "One, or several, or all. I didn't know your Avus fellow. All I knew was that Telvrin said he'd worked out a deal with a contact, said we could have a bit of fun on our break. So I said, sure, if it's all in fun. You certainly looked like you were having... fun."

        "I was," she said absentmindedly. "The statues he's been shipping. He's smuggling Daedric artifacts. That's the trouble. I don't see how that's sacrilege, precisely, I mean, they could be relics of the Anticipations or—"

        "Sorosi, those aren't Daedric," said Ravos. "They're... look, I shouldn't tell you this, because we're not supposed to tell civilians. They're related to the Sixth House cult."

        Sorosi laughed in surprise. Ravos was looking at her now, and she caught his eyes. Or his gaze caught hers; she couldn't look away.

        "It's not just stories," he said. "The cultists are dangerous and smuggling Sixth House artifacts is _not_ something I can overlook. If it were Daedric artifacts, I wouldn't mention this to anyone, Sorosi. Because I know it would affect you badly, and ... we overlook a lot."

        "All the Watch take bribes," said Sorosi, because everyone knew that. He'd take bribes, or her body, and leave Avus alone.

        "We do," said Ravos, and he looked ashamed.

        And just like that, she felt a little less naive and sheltered. Ravos was an idealist. "You thought you'd be different," she said. His eyes narrowed. "You don't like taking bribes. You don't think it's right. Like slavery. You've..." she laughed at the words that came into her mind, but said them anyway, "You've a noble soul."

        "Sorosi, I'm going to have to arrest Avus. He has to know what he's doing is illegal, and I _need_ his contacts. You've told me he's smuggling Sixth House artifacts, I can't just sit on my ass and take bribes. I can't protect him for you."

        "I don't know why you'd do it _for me_ ," said Sorosi. Then, "You can't arrest Avus! I don't think he does know what he's doing!"

        "You love him?"

        "Well, I..." Sorosi was caught off-guard by the disbelief in Ravos's voice. Her mind spun frantically. She needed to buy time. "You can't. Look, I know a way you can find out which of your Ordinator friends is responsible for the murders and the smuggling."

        Swiftly, she explained that Avus was meeting with his 'business partners,' and that she would be there. She blushed heavily, and Ravos frowned. "I'll go and find out their names," she said. "Maybe they won't blindfold me this time."

        "That's not good enough," he said. "Besides, if they suspect you're spying, they could injure you." His hand reached out to touch her arm briefly, then snatched back as if he hadn't wanted to make the gesture.

        "Well, I'm already set to go," she said peevishly. "You can either arrest Avus and lose your chance, or you can trust me."

        He grumbled about it, but in the end gave his word that he wouldn't arrest Avus until she had told him all she could. She'd bought time, at least.

 

* * *

 

Avus pulled a black scarf from his pocket and brushed it over her cheek. Arousal jolted through her at once. Her blood pumped hot; she grew wet under Avus's touch; she let him take her hand and lead her outside her home.

        Fog had rolled in, smothering the water so it reflected no stars. The fog was so heavy there was no mushroom glow, and the air smelled faintly sulphurous; it had come from the north, from Red Mountain. She was happier when they'd gone into the canton and descended through the half-barren Waistworks.

        She held her hair out of the way so that Avus could blindfold her. His hands were strong, she thought dreamily, for all he didn't work as hard as he should. The knot he tied at the back of her skull wouldn't come undone. He pulled it so tight she wondered if it would need to be cut off.

        Down the stairs and through a door that led into the sound of splashing. The Waterworks. She couldn't tell if Avus was guiding her to where she'd been before. She didn't trip on the floor, and she listened to him close a door and lock it. She heard breathing, the sound of robes rustling, a low murmur. From the echoes, she was in a bigger room than the previous one. She didn't know where she was at all.

        "Ramarys!" said a mer with a harsh rasping voice that was incongruously exuberant. "You didn't need to blindfold the woman."

        "I thought you wanted me to keep secrets," said Avus.

        Arms—stronger, thicker than Avus's—pulled her into an embrace from behind. She yelped in surprise, almost losing her balance. She felt the harsh-voiced mer pull up her blouse and lifted her arms to help. "We do, but she'll keep them also. Won't you, sweetheart?" his voice changed, lowering, direct in her ear. She shuddered as his tone shifted from merriment to threat, seamless and terrifying. She wanted her blouse back on. She wanted her blindfold off. She wanted to run—but as his hands explored her body, she wanted nothing more than to let him do as he willed.

        "Watch it with the pet names, Telvrin," Avus muttered sullenly, "that's my girl you're talking to."

        "Ours for the evening," said the harsh-voiced Telvrin. His hand closed like a vice over Sorosi's breast. "Isn't that right, pet?"

        "Yes," she said, half on instinct. There was a thought bubbling under the surface, but it was not cohesive. She would do as Telvrin asked. Telvrin—the one Ravos already suspected. So she could confirm this for him.

        "What's your name?" said Telvrin. He unfastened her belt, arms reaching around her. She let her head fall back against his shoulder.

        "Sorosi."

        "Sorosi," he repeated, and the way he said it, rasped and low and hungry, made her shudder again, and turn her face to nip the smooth flesh at his neck.

        She heard Avus make a sound, and realized that he was frustrated and unhappy because, unlike that first night, he _didn't_ want to share her.

        Her belt and skirt fell away; Telvrin turned her so she pressed against him. He kissed her possessively and deep, and she thought briefly that Avus would be furious—and then more hands and bodies were around her, suddenly. Someone pulled her away from Telvrin's lips and nipped her ear; she swore softly at the sudden pleasure, causing a ripple of appreciative noises among the three or four mer who surrounded her. Someone pulled her hand down to a cock, and she squeezed and began to stroke. So it was happening again, but this time there was no armour, no time limit, she was not tied up, and she could use all of her body and not just her mouth. She had no idea how to tell anyone apart. Bodies slipped around her in snippets of sensation: a cock in her hands; lips soft on her mouth, on her collarbone, on her nipples; a tongue running up the length of her ear.

        Then she heard a _CRASH!_ and the splintering of wood and everything stopped.

        "There you all are," said a painfully familiar voice. Sorosi felt herself flush from crown to toes. "I see no one thought to invite me to the party."

        "That's a dramatic entrance, Ravos," said Telvrin. "You couldn't have spared the door?"

        "It was locked," said Ravos. "And you are all under arrest, for serial murder, for sacrilege in our sacred city, and for associations with the Sixth House."

        Murder? _Murder?_ Sorosi swayed on her feet, and fell backwards as one of the Ordinators shoved her out of the way. She heard feet pound on the floor, heard the scrape of weaponry being drawn.

        "You shouldn't have come alone," said a different mer, this one with a rumbling, booming voice that seemed to shake the room.

        "I came to bring you in," said Ravos. "Thought you'd like it from a friend. The office knows you're all murderers, now, anyway. The Archcanon knows you're all heretics."

        Sorosi tugged at the knot ends, trying to free the blindfold, but it wouldn't loosen. She pulled the fabric over her face, wincing as it squeezed tighter... tighter... and then it was over her head. She blinked furiously as her eyes adjusted, seeing nothing but blurs of motion and round blobs of lamp.

        And then she could see: Ravos in his Ordinator armour, mask on, mace in hand. The others were all off-duty, and they had knives, save for the burliest, who brandished a slab of wood. The tallest had a dagger that was long and curved, black as volcanic rock and glossy, rippled with red. Daedric weaponry. The unarmoured Ordinators looked like finely-dressed rabble, but they moved smoothly and purposely towards Ravos, and their faces showed only determination.

        Time felt thick like jelly all around her. They were in a large storeroom, and there were tables and stools near her, coinage and cards on the tabletop jostling with bottles of shein and mazte. Avus was backed up against a wall, amidst a sea of crates just like the ones that had been in Sorosi's home. He looked terrified. Sorosi ignored him.

        She grabbed the nearest bottle of mazte and flung herself at the tallest Ordinator, the one with the Daedric dagger. She lifted the bottle high, and he turned in surprise when he heard her. The bottle smashed into the side of his face, thin clay shattering on impact. Sorosi fell into him with the momentem, and regained her balance as he staggered backwards.

        Red hot pain bit into her arm and stomach. She yelped and jumped backwards, reaching down to the wound: the Daedric blade had bitten deep enough that blood flowed hot under her fingers. "Almalexia guard your daughter," she mumbled.

        "You should've stayed out of this," rasped the tall mer. Telvrin. He held his head, and there was blood seeping through his fingers, same as Sorosi's. She could hardly think: with every inhalation it felt like the blade sliced into her again, and again, and again. Bandage it, she thought. She needed to stop the bleeding.

        A meaty thump distracted her: she looked up to see Ravos's spiked mace crash into the chest of one of the knife-wielding mer, who fell backwards and fell on his ass—and then crumpled into a fetal position. But the mer with the plank took that moment to sidestep and bring the plank down on Ravos's shoulder, somehow angled around the sweep of pauldron, which caused him to stagger.

        Sorosi turned to where her clothes lay in a pile. Stupid, stupid. What had she been thinking? The blood made her hands slippery, so she didn't even bother trying to tear the clothing like a heroine from the books she bound; the stuff was too well-woven, anyway, bought directly from the weaver's guild. She wrapped the blouse tight around her middle, and then wrapped the sleeves around and knotted them. The cut on her arm was bleeding profusely, but didn't look very deep. It itched on top of the hurting. Telvrin hadn't really been trying to hurt her: he'd lashed out in surprise at the pain. She didn't think the gash on her belly was terrible.

        She looked up, taking stock. Telvrin was swaying on his feet, but he still held his dagger, and his attention was focussed on Ravos, who was taking a pummelling from the plank—wood on steel sounded like strange thunder.

        And then, suddenly—lightning followed thunder. A white-hot crackling ball of it sprouted in the middle of the floor. Sorosi flung herself backwards as it exploded outwards; it sent out blinding tendrils of scorching heat. Sorosi was fast enough and far enough out of the way that it missed her: no one else in the room was that lucky.

        Sorosi covered her eyes but she was still blinking dazzle-spots from them long after the shock magic had dwindled. She looked up to see Ravos unharmed, covered in what looked like a soap bubble—a shield spell. His opponents were on the floor or on their knees, swearing or groaning.

        Undena stood in the doorway waving in more Ordinators in regulation armour, her hands covered in little sparks, her long red hair half-standing up like a corona of fiery snakes.

        Sorosi squeaked, grabbed her skirt, and pulled it over her body.

        Everything was a blur. Ordinators arrested Ordinators—the arrested were no longer Ordinators, now no more than murderers, murderers with chains on their wrists, sullen-faced and demoralized. Avus was arrested too, and Sorosi would have been if Ravos had not stepped in front of her and exchanged harsh metallic words with the chief Ordinator, the one with a fancy gold-trimmed blue cape over one shoulder.

        Undena threw a cloak over her shoulders, but Sorosi didn't know where the cloak came from. It was twice the size of Sorosi's cloak, and, with some clever tucking in (by Undena, all sympathy and soft hands) it covered Sorosi's nakedness in its entirety.

        This gave Sorosi enough courage to stagger over to Avus and slap him across the face. He looked at her with shock-dazed eyes. The Ordinators holding him did not move to stop her, but held Avus implacably.

        “How dare you collaborate with murderers?” Sorosi demanded. “How dare you find illegal work, and pretend you’re pulling your own, and lie to me under my own roof? Undena’s right, you’re no better than a vagabond and a scoundrel, playing on my good nature!”

        “Sorosi, I’m sorry—”

        “Save it, you witless fetcher,” she said, her voice high and thin with stress and fury. “You’ve toyed with me long enough.” She spat at him and turned away, feeling rootless and bereft. But her eyes were dry, and Undena and Ravos were there.

        Sometime later Sorosi realized Ravos was carrying her up the stairs. Shock, she thought. I am thinking slowly because of shock. The kind that wasn't Undena's magic. Had she known Undena was such a strong mage? She wanted to ask, but Undena was already talking.

        "I won't leave her," she said to Ravos. "I don't care who you are. You only just met her, and I've been her friend since we were toddlers. I don't care if you badly want to show off in your nice armour or stick your cock in her, she's my friend and she was in danger and I'm not about to trust any man with her after what Avus and those murderers did."

        Ravos snorted behind his mask. "I'm just taking her to our healer, who is closer than the Temple healers. Come along if you like. You've already acted the Ordinator tonight—you might as well get to see headquarters."

        "You just want me to work for you," grumbled Undena, with a familiarity in her tone that surprised Sorosi.

        "We've got four vacancies," said Ravos.

        "I'll think about it," said Undena. "But no promises."

        The healer was a gruff old mer, her face heavily wrinkled, making her faded Ashlander tattoos look uneven. She muttered something in an unintelligible Velothi dialect as she unwound Sorosi's make-shift 'bandage.' Then she looked up, glared at Ravos, and shooed him from the curtained-off area in the small infirmary. Undena perched on a stool, looking worried.

        "And how did you sustain this?" asked the healer.

        "I, uh..."

        Undena leaned forward. "Yeah, what _did_ you do?"

        Blushing, Sorosi said, "I hit a—one of the murderers—Telvrin..." who moments before had been involved in _very_ intimate activities with her, oh Vivec what had her life become? "With a bottle of mazte. To the face. But he had a dagger, a _Daedric_ dagger, and he cut me. I don't—it's not deep right? It's not deep? I'm going to live?"

        "You'll live," said the healer, unimpressed.

        "You ran at a mer with a dagger _completely naked?_ " asked Undena.

        Sorosi wanted to bury her face in her hands, but her hands were still covered in dried blood. "Um. Yes."

        The healer pressed cooled hands on Sorosi's wound. Blue light like water splashed and poured deep into Sorosi's body. Where it went, painlessness followed.

        "And now, you go home to sleep," said the healer.

        Undena took her home, and curled up with her on the bed the whole night while Sorosi slept fitfully.

 

* * *

 

In the morning Undena explained what had happened: she'd seen Avus tie a blindfold around Sorosi and lead her into the Waterworks. "I thought he was going to kill you," she said, "But you weren't struggling. And then I remembered how interested Ravos had been in those crates, so I went to see if he was on-duty. Turns out there was always some connection between Avus's smuggling and the murders. Turns out the Ordinators were competing with the Camonna Tong. Anyway, Ravos came right away when I said you were in danger, just started arming up."

        "He knew Avus was smuggling," said Sorosi bitterly. "And I tried to buy Avus time! I didn't know he was in league with murderers." She felt like crying, but she also felt a hard rage that dried up the tears as soon as the urge came. How dare he work in league with them, how dare he let murderers ravage her canton?

        When Sorosi had eaten something, Undena took her back to the Watch Office. They were questioned in detail by the stern-faced Watch Captain with the Necrom accent. She was kinder and gentler to Sorosi than she had been the night Sorosi had stumbled over the first of the St. Olms corpses. But she was vigorous and thorough, and Sorosi felt drained by the end of it.

        "Avus Ramarys is being held at the Ministry of Truth," the captain said, when Sorosi asked. "He will give us the information we need, and likely he'll be sentenced to death as an accomplice in murder. Unless..."

        Sorosi ran through her household accounts. "I can pay," she said hoarsely. "I don't want him to die. He's an idiot..." _but I loved him once._ "Just ban him from Vivec," she begged. "Let him loose somewhere else."

        It cost her 3,000 septims, about half of her life's savings. Then she spent another hundred on offerings for the temple, burning cones and cones of incense, coming back day after day to the St. Olms Temple.

        "If he was an accomplice to murder, than I am but a stage removed. Oh Lord Vivec, this is Your city, and I love it as I love You; forgive me for not realizing... forgive me that I could not act sooner."

        Her friends, male and female alike, that she had neglected more and more as Avus's influence in her life had waxed, flocked to her, and accepted her apologies with grace and sympathy. It was more than she expected, and it went a long way to easing her guilt and fears.

 

* * *

 

A little over a week after the arrests, on a day she did not have work, Ravos knocked on her door.

        "Brought you lunch," he said with a lopsided grin, holding a basket full of fresh buns and leaf-wrapped kebabs.

        Sorosi let him in without saying anything. She didn't know what to say. He looked terribly handsome in red and dark brown, colours she hadn't seen on him before. His hair was braided and lay over one shoulder. She itched to unbraid it, to see his hair fall over his face while he pressed her into the bed—that was a train of thought she needed to stop.

        "How have you been keeping?" he asked as she brought out plates and set them on the table.

        "Well enough," she replied.

        The buns had a filling of Cyrodiilic beans and sweetpulp, and were really very good. Sorosi ate two before she'd realized it.

        "You helped prevent more murders," said Ravos. "Perhaps we would have caught the murderers.... undoubtedly we'd have caught them eventually... but it might have been awhile. They'd hidden things up well. And if you hadn't told me about the Sixth House artifacts, I wouldn't have been able to piece the puzzle together."

        Sorosi looked at the crumbs on her plate and licked sweetpulp off her finger.

        Ravos sighed. "Thank you."

        Sorosi smiled slightly, which felt odd. Her facial muscles were tight. She wasn't sure when she'd last smiled. But Ravos's eyes glittered and creased around the corners, and she realized he was happy to have a reaction from her. She let out the breath she'd been holding. "You're welcome," she said.

        "And I'm sorry about Avus."

        Sorosi lifted her eyebrows. "No you're not," she said.

        Ravos's lip twitched. "Alright," he said. "I'm not. I'm glad that s'wit's locked away, and I wouldn't be sad if he had been executed. He didn't deserve your money." Sorosi flinched, and Ravos leaned forward, leaning his elbows on the table. "He didn't deserve you."

        "Mercy," she whispered. "Almalexia would wish it."

        Ravos settled in his chair. "Perhaps."

        When the food was finished, and the table cleared, Sorosi stood in the centre of her home and looked Ravos over. She'd say good bye, she supposed. I'll see you around. Take care. Come by sometime. I want to see you everyday for the rest of my life. I may never want to see you again, for the memories you bring with you.

        He took her gently, hesitantly, into his arms. She pressed her face to his chest, took the moment to breathe. And then his hand was under her chin, lifting her face up for a kiss. It was not an innocent kiss, and it started passionate and deep—when they parted, they were panting heavily. "I want very much for you to invite me into your bed," said Ravos, his voice hoarse with lust, his hands cupping her face. She could feel the tremour of restraint in his arms, knew he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. "But I won't press you. You've been through a lot and I've already taken more advantage of you than I—"

        "Ravos Telmayn," she said, "if you _don't_ take advantage of me right now, I will kill you."

        He froze, his eyes wide and soft.

        "Take me to bed," she demanded. "And fuck me as hard as you can." She pressed up close, grinding her hips against him, felt his hard shaft against her belly. He groaned. "Well?" she asked.

        In answer, he carried her to bed.

 


End file.
